


Survival

by suchakidder



Series: Jearmin Week 2018 [3]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Established Relationship, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, as happy as you can get in snk, half canon compliant half fix-it fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-07
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2020-02-27 20:55:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18746941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suchakidder/pseuds/suchakidder
Summary: A look at Jean and Armin's relationship between chapter 59 and 90.





	Survival

**Author's Note:**

> Since Isayama seems dead set on withholding any type of closure or even acknowledgement to the deep friendship between Jean and Armin that we got in Female Titan, Clash of Titans and Uprising arc, I guess I'll have to do it myself. 
> 
> I'd like to call the canon compliant as there's no proof Jean and Armin _weren't_ a couple behind the scenes, but I guess it's more correct to call it canon adjacent. This is written on the basis that Jean and Armin get together after chapter 50 (the head canon Yams will have to rip from my cold dead hands) but other than that everything else that happens is from the manga.

They don’t talk about it.

Armin kills a woman for Jean, takes her life because she believes in a cause just like they do, is the one to make the shot because Jean hesitates when he shouldn’t. 

Jean apologizes, of course he does. The guilt and shame and dismay well up in his stomach, threatening to come out in desperate mewls and sobs, and it’s easier to keep the turmoil at bay if he keeps talking, telling the squad how sorry he is, how he knows he was wrong, how he knows what he’s done. 

Words won’t work with Armin. Mikasa said to give him time, and Jean does, sitting in that barn with his back to wall and knees pulled up to his chest and all he can think of is how flimsy “I’m sorry” sounds, two words that can’t change the past. What else is there to say? “I’d do anything for you” or “I don’t deserve you” or “I’ll do it next time”. They’re all true and not enough and Jean could throw all the words he knows at how he feels and none would be able to portray it right.

So when Armin finally comes inside, picks his way over to Jean amidst the sleeping forms of their teammates, pulls his bedroll snugly next to Jean’s and whispers into small pocket of space between them, “I don’t walk to talk about, if that’s alright with you,” Jean is relieved. 

It’s alright with Jean; they don’t talk about it.

\--

It continues, becomes a pattern. Small fights that needn’t be furthered, issues they don’t agree on, they just don’t talk about it and it works. Above all they are soldiers, protecting humanity is their number one priority, protecting themselves is somewhere down the line and fostering their relationship somewhere even further down.

If they were civilians, or soldiers in a different time, some time before the Armored and Colossal Titans broke down the walls, maybe they’d have the luxury to fight about the silly things -who hogs the covers at night, chore duties, prices at the market -but they don’t even have the luxury of permanent housing until after Historia is crowned queen, much less the luxury to waste time on small problems.

It works until it doesn’t. Until Jean watches Armin die from afar, helpless to do anything about it and Jean watches Mikasa and Eren raise their blades to their superiors, with all the freedom in the world to join them, and Jean watches Armin come back to them. 

They don’t talk, at all, they don’t even make eye contact, for days in the mad dash back to Wall Rose. If Jean had thought Armin killing for him had been hard to stomach, this is worse. Shock is the only thing that keeps him from making a spectacle of himself, wailing and sobbing and throwing himself upon the ground. His brain is too busy reorganizing previously held constants-Armin, titans, humanity- that there’s nothing left for the other parts of him, certainly not the energy it would take to form sentences or cry or doing anything but marchly numbly ahead. 

Back then when it was simpler, Jean said he’d do anything for Armin, even if he’d never said it outloud, and he meant it and if that means giving Armin all the space he needs, for as long as he needs, Jean will do it. 

Their first night in back in Trost, Jean’s in his new bedroom, to himself now that’s there’s a surplus of unused rooms, in bed, awake, too mentally exhausted to do anything but stare at the ceiling, when the door opens and Armin’s blond head peaks in, a satisfied “it’s you” on his breath as he crosses the room and into Jean’s bed.

“I’m here,” Jean says because it's the only thing he can. 

\---

They don’t talk about it. They, the remaining Survey Corp, of which Jean is now a veteran, talk of little else, in planning sessions and meetings, in talks that go late into the night. Jean sits across the table from Armin, like old times, just the two of them, as they volley procedure and philosophy back and forth. 

Alone, in his room more often than Armin’s, they don’t talk about it. Armin’s never brought it up, as if all Shiganshina really did was a give a name and history to their true enemy, and Jean follows his lead. If his penance is to tamp down his feelings, the massive storm roiling inside of him, he’ll do it, and he won’t complain but it’s not easy. It’s like the ride back to Trost, aching and raw, Jean stumbling forward just barely.

One night, it slips out anyway.

It’s late and Armin hasn’t come to the room yet. They each have their own room, to keep up appearances, and with how little they do anything but talk strategy together in public, the ruse works, but Armin sleeps in Jean’s bed more often than not. Some nights, Armin gets in so late and wakes so early, all Jean has to know he’s been there is the mussed sheets next to him and Armin’s scent still lingering. 

Jean doesn’t mean to wait up for Armin but he’s so exhausted it hurts and the pain keeps him awake, staring at the ceiling, trying to practice calming techniques, when the door opens. He doesn’t look over. Usually, Armin’s shucked off his clothes and climbed into bed before the door even swings shut, and Jean waits for the bed to shift with Armin’s presence.

Jean looks up. Armin’s leaning on the door, breathing heavily. He’s only in pants and a shirt, military dress discarded for what Jean knows was a night of experimenting with his titan form. The skin that shows, his neck and face, the bits of shoulder and chest that peak out of his unbuttoned collar, it's all flushed red, hot steamy shower red and there’s deep embedded lines in his cheek. Jean must tut or frown or make some type of disparaging reaction because Armin is rolling his eyes, even as he walks to the bed in pained short steps. 

“I’m fine, Jean.”

“I didn’t say anything.” Jean replies, and he can’t help himself, he’s sitting up, moving over to the side of the bed so he can help Armin undress. It must have been a particularly hard night, if he allows him to help, more than allows it, Armin sighs and lays his head on Jean’s shoulder while Jean works on the buttons of his shirt.

“You didn’t have say anything.” Armin huffs, agitated, but he neither removes his head nor stops Jean’s task. “I’m not doing anything I don’t… I have to have complete control of my Titan, Jean, you know this.” 

Jean’s mistake is a nod, too forced and a moment too late. It’s hard enough to hold it inside when all he wants to do is shake Armin by the shoulders, tell him there’s nothing he _has_ to do, that he was brought back to live not to be a weapon; it takes every bit of willpower to force the bob of his head, up and down, and that’s still not enough for Armin.

“You never cared this much when it was Eren experimenting with his Titan form.” Armin snaps. 

Jean’s fingers still on the last button. He won’t say it, he can’t, but he feels it building, like a storm approaching from the distance, clouds darkening, thunder clashing before even the first rain drop falls and Jean knows if he opens his mouth, if so much as breathes he’ll--

“Well, I wasn’t in love with Eren was I?”

It’s not how Jean ever pictured his first, and only--there won’t be anyone after this--love confession going. Angry, spiteful, said truthfully but not in a moment of passion or happiness. 

The words hang there, heavy, and though they’re touching, hands clasped around each other save for the one halted at Armin’s shirt and Armin’s forehead still resting on Jean, the distance grows further and further. After a lifetime, Armin finishes the task himself, moving out of Jean’s embrace to pull his shirt off his arms. 

He’s looking down, working on his belt next when he says it. “It’d be easier, for both us, if you didn’t.”

Like a punch to the gut, the air is gone from Jean’s chest and he tries not to grasp onto the bed too hard, tries not to show he’s reeling from the blow. 

Thirteen years it's never been a blessing, but thirteen years is all he’ll have have to pretend, all he’ll be allowed. What are thirteen years of being the person Armin wants, being the person he needs, to compare to all of Jean’s failings?

“Is that what you want?” 

Armin sighs, stepping out of his pants, the last article of clothing and straddles Jean’s lap, hands coming up to cup Jean’s face. It’s not a nod, but there’s a yes there, in the tight smile, nearly a grimace, and those big, pleading, blue eyes.

Jean nods for both of them. They don’t talk about it.

\--

Except it’s two weeks later, raining hard, and they’re scrambling to set up camp in the deluge. 

They’re somewhere between Wall Rose and Maria and had tried to make it to the town at the wall to take shelter there, but the rain had been unrelenting, thick, heavy drops that fell in sheet after sheet, the ground turning muddy and uneven under their horses. Had this been before, the mission probably would have ended there, they would have been made to abandon the wagons and retreat, but everything’s changed since Shiganshina. 

There’s laughter, giggling, stomping in puddles and splashing each other as everyone runs around trying to set up camp, only a few choosing to remain in the wagons or huddled under their cloaks. Aside from nine survivors of Shiganshina, none of them have been on scouting missions before, none know the fear and danger and desperation that loomed ever present. There’s still the outside forces and stray Titans that the guillotine might have missed, and Jean might have once found all these green soldiers naive for their mirth, but now he’s just glad someone’s lightening the mood.

Jean sets up his tent with Armin, getting whacked in the face with wet, heavy canvas much to Armin’s laughter, but declines to duck inside with Armin, instead helping the other soldiers set up the mess tent. Once that’s finished, there’s the wagons to shoulder out of the muck less they slip any further and unlucky soldiers to position in a perimeter around camp, and Jean’s meaning to help Sasha in the kitchen or look over the map with Mikasa in the mess tent or-

“You should take a break Jean,” Hanji says, allowing him to duck under the cover of the mess tent but not to step inside.

Jean’s still not sure how to talk to Levi and Hanji, now that he’s considered a veteran. He’ll get his own squad soon, he knows, and that’ll put him on even more even footing with them but it's one thing to talk strategy, another to talk about this.

“I’m fine,” he answers.

“I saw you set up your tent earlier, what are you doing here?” She asks, undeterred.

“I was going to -”

“Nothing’s changed about our plan, we’ll just be arriving at Wall Maria tomorrow instead of tonight. We’ll debrief again in the morning, but other than that…”

Jean’s waiting for the inevitable “don’t let your personal life affect your work life,” talk that’s bound to happen one of these days, especially when it seems every public interaction he has with Armin ends in Armin huffing in frustration and ending their conversation. In private, there are rarely even interactions to end. Armin still sleeps in his bed, and they have sex sometimes, mostly wordless affairs that Jean can do by rote by now.

But Hanji surprises him.

“We don’t get breaks like this often. You should enjoy time with the people you love while you still have it,” and then quite literally, she pushes him back out into the rain. 

Armin’s head pops out of the tent flap when Jean approaches, his hair drying in frizzy bunches around his face. He’s got a giggle in his voice as he says, “You’re not coming in here dripping in those wet clothes.”

Whatever Armin was expecting him to do, it was not to strip naked, even out of his shorts, in full view of anyone who looked out. Armin laughs out loud, the first time Jean’s heard that sound in a long time, and covers his eyes with his hands. 

“It’s not anything you haven’t seen,” Jean points out.

“I’m embarrassed for you. I can’t believe-- anyone could see you. Just get in the tent, you crazy exhibitionist.”

“I don’t know, maybe the Commander needs help with--”

“Jean,” Armin pleads.

Jean steps in. Armin, Jean learns when he takes the blanket off himself to wrap around Jean, has stripped too and rather than re-dress, stands in the middle of their tent as bare as Jean had been outside. It doesn’t last for long though, as he leads Jean over to the pallet he’s made with their bedrolls and manhandles Jean until they’re in a suitable position. 

“This is the most efficient way to retain body heat,” Armin says into his chest, slipping his leg between Jean’s. They’re cuddled together under the layers of blankets, Armin quite literally on top of him, lying so that they’re pressed chest to chest, legs entwined and Armin’s head resting on Jean’s collarbone, no clothing between them. Jean hadn’t noticed in the moment, but now with Armin’s warm body pressed against him, he can tell how cold he was, out in the rain. His fingers actually sting as the feeling returns.

“And here I thought you just wanted to cuddle,” Jean means to joke, but it comes out wrong, hard where it should be light and airy, implications where they’re shouldn’t be any. Jean doesn’t mean anything by it, he’s glad for any time with Armin, but Armin stills, the fingers that had been absently stroking up and down his arm going motionless. 

“Are we ever going to go back to before?” Armin asks.

Jean swallows. “It’s just… it’s not easy for me.”

The silence is suffocating. The rain is still pouring down, as hard as ever, a cacophony only to highlight how still, quiet, tense it is inside the tent. Armin’s weight on top of him, pleasant and warm only second ago, transforms to a suffocating pressure. 

Jean can feel Armin’s heartbeat, as assuredly as Armin can feel his own, beating riotously in his chest, and his breaths, hot and wet, against his shoulder, but it’s not until he can feel tears drops leaking, softly but steadily onto his shoulder that Jean can’t hold back anymore. 

“Armin I’m sorry, I-”

“No Jean, no there’s- _You_ shouldn’t be sorry.” Armin rolls off him, ignoring Jean’s move to grab him, and sits up, still in their pallet, but facing away. Jean sits up too, but keeps a healthy space between them. 

“I’m sorry.” Armin says after a minute, delivering his words to the canvas wall of their tent. “I have it easy, right now. I have the easy part. I get to live the rest of my life with you whether it's tomorrow or… or in twelve years when my times up-”

Jean reaches for him again, a hand to his shoulder that Armin shrugs off. 

“No, let me finish Jean. You’re my future, Jean. You. But I’m not going to be yours.”

“Armin, you don’t have to worry about me. I want whatever you want, I want you to -”

“I love you,” Armin says, sounding opposite of the way you should sound like when you’re in love. “Of course I love you, that’s not anything new, you had to have known. That’s not… I love you so much, so much more than I ever thought I could. And if you feel for me, even a fraction of what I feel for you… then I’ve signed you up for one of the worse fates I can imagine.”

“And… if I could… pretend, if I could think maybe you didn’t love me back, if you were just here out of obligation or you liked my ass that much, then I wouldn’t feel so bad continuing this. You deserve so much more than this.”

When he tries to talk while he cries, Armin’s voice warbles with tears.

“I love you, Armin” Jean tries to imbue in it everything that didn’t come out the first time: he loves Armin not out of obligation, or guilt, or spite even. Fully, beyond any doubt, forever.

“I’m a terrible person, Jean.”

“Armin-”

Armin turns around to face him. “I’m glad I’m the one who will die first: I’m glad I’m leaving you for that kind of pain because at least if it’s me, I’m not the one who has to deal with that” He waits to let it sink in, watches Jean’s face. 

“Do you still love me now?” He throws it out in a challenge, but Jean can see it in his eyes and the line of his shoulder and his front teeth biting into his bottom lip, hesitancy, uncertainty.

How could Jean not love him? Words haven’t been a help to him with this, so he grabs Armin by the chin, no time for gentleness, and kisses him. 

Armin cries out into his mouth, his body immediately going soft, falling into Jean’s embrace. He kisses back as fiercely and desperately, clutching onto Jean’s shoulders tightly.

Clothes already shucked off, they have half the work done for them and they inch down into the pallet easily, thoughtlessly. Jean is sitting reaching out to Armin, holding his face in his hands, and then Armin is closer and then they’re lying down and the progression is so gradual Jean doesn’t realize it till Armin is pulling away, creating the smallest space between them so he can ask - 

“Did you bring any-” 

Jean is never more thankful for the small tent when Armin has to go only centimeters away, rustling in Jean’s bags for the small jar he hands to Jean once he returns. Jean hands it back wordlessly. 

They’re side by side, face to face, so neither is propped on the other, so Armin has both hands free, one to curl around Jean’s neck, the other to grab at his hip, so Jean can sling one leg over Armin’s and pull him as close together as they can get.

Another position would be easier, would be a better angle for Armin to reach down and open him up, but Jean doesn’t want to lose the closeness. 

Armin starts with two fingers, a signature move, as if finding his prostate on the first try. Without time or subtlety, he massages the bundle of nerves, has Jean gasping and crying out into Armin’s neck, and inserts a third finger far before Jean’s ready, twisting and scissoring. Jean loves this part, loves Armin, greedy and impatient, and at the last second, as Armin’s pulling out his fingers, Jean turns around in Armin’s arms, his back plasted all along Armin’s front.

“Like this,” Jean says, because as good as greedy and impatient is, he likes it slow, wants to feel every drag and pull as Armin rocks into him. Armin kisses the back of his neck, lines himself up, and pushes in. 

Of all the things to have happened since Jean joined the military, the places he thought his life would go, this right here, flayed open, laid bare, giving his heart not for humanity but for someone else to carry and hold, that’s the most unexpected part.

Afterwards, Armin insister on checking his hole, a move that never fails to peel Jean open and raw more than fucking does. Armin rolls Jean over a bit, tuts at what he sees, and runs a tentative finger at what Jean can only imagine is the leaking ruin of his hole.

“Jean, you look sore. Why don’t you ever tell me if I’m too rough?” 

Jean hisses as Armin applies even more pressure, holds his breath as the finger circling his asshole pushes in slightly.

“You’re always impatient Armin. Let’s just add it to the list of reasons why you’re so terrible.”

The finger inside him stills, then pulls out completely. Jean is free to move and he rolls onto his back, staring up at Armin, waiting, an apology ready if he’s ruined the moment they worked so hard to achieve.

“Murderer, betrayer… impatient fingerer.” A smile pulls at the corner of Armin’s lips. “Jean, for the sake of humanity, just put me down now.”

“Nah, I sacrifice too much for humanity on a daily basis, I think they’ll just have to suck it this time.”

A giggle mess, Armin collapses onto him, and they stay like that, holding onto each other and laughing, for a good long while. After awhile, it’s only the rain outside, slower than before, but a constant pattering on the tent, and the occasional amused huff. Armin’s happy, Jean can tell, loose and relaxed and so good damn happy, happier than Jean has seen him in a long time, but Jean’s not there yet, he feels it’s fluttering around in his chest and he’s too loose, too fucked out to hold it in anymore. 

“When we started to clean up Trost, you know I hadn’t Marco since we helped Eren close the gate, but I still had this naive thought that he’d be ok. While we were getting our team assignments, I asked around to see if any of our friends had seen him and Connie told me to check the infirmary and I couldn't tell him I already had. I think maybe if I said it outloud, that he wasn’t in the infirmary, that he hadn’t been seen since the night before, then I would realize how ridiculous believing he was still alive was. So when I found him--”

“Jean, I didn’t--”

No one did. By the time Jean had gotten back to the training grounds that day, everyone just seemed to know Marco was among the many bodies they found. No one, in his cleaning group, nor the rest of the 104th, ever asked who was the one to find him and so Jean never answered.

“When I found him, I was still in disbelief, looking at his mangled corpse thinking ‘something’s not right, he’s alive, why am I seeing this?’. And so after that day, I swore to myself I’d never let myself hope for something like that again, because it hurts so much worse when it’s wrong.”

“So when you… when I figured out what you were doing, when I saw the explosion… I’d already given up on you, Armin. I failed you. I should have been with Eren and Mikasa, I should have said _something_ , but I sat there like an idiot. I sat there and I didn’t say a single thing, and Levi was… And you talk about not deserving me; Armin, all I’ve ever done is let you down.”

Jean started crying somewhere in there, and by the time he’s done speaking, tears are flowing steadily down his cheeks. His chest heaves and his lip wobbles and Armin just lets him, doesn’t stop him. It’s terrifying, that everything is out there and Armin isn’t saying, isn’t doing anything, but it’s liberating also and Jean buries his head in his hands and cries like he hasn’t done in years. 

Eventually, there’s a soft touch on one of his hands, and when he looks up, it’s Armin, holding a cool, wet, cloth out to him. Jean takes it, his face is so hot and it feels so nice, and when he’s done, Armin is still there, gaze soft. 

“Are you done?”

Jean nods, and Armin comes even closer, manoeuvring himself into Jean’s arms, tucked in close. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to… do that, in front of you.”

“Why not?”

“Armin-”

“I’m serious. I love you Jean. Still. And it wasn’t your choice. It wasn’t Mikasa or Eren’s either. It was Levi’s, and it was a terrible choice to make.”

It can’t be that easy. It isn’t that easy. 

“Armin, I don’t know what I would have chosen if I had been in Levi’s position.” 

Jean’s waiting for him to pull away, out of his embrace, out of the tent, but Armin just laughs softly against his shoulder.

“You want me to one up you? Fine, I don’t know what I would have done either. If it had been you or Erwin, you or Eren-”

“I don’t think Eren deserves you.”

Armin does pull away then, not far though, just far enough he can meet Jean’s gaze.

“Before we found out Eren was still alive, when I thought he was dead and we were all stranded on the rooftops, I thought it wasn’t fair at all that you had survived when he didn’t.”

It goes back and forth, all the things they’ve done, all the terrible truths they’ve held onto too long-- “I don’t remember how many I’ve led to death, or even who they all were” and “I didn’t do anything while he touched you -- and with each one, Jean feels lighter. He would float away if not for Armin’s calming, grounding voice.

“I think no one understands me as well as you do.” Armin says later once they’ve talked themselves to exhaustion. The rain is long over and the sky’s already lightening, the soggy ground warming, and it's pointless to even try to sleep, when they’ll be up and moving in an hour or so, but Jean’s spooned up to Armin, holding him close in the still darkness of their tent.

“That’s not a bad one,” he points out.

“You understand all of me. The good … and all the bad. That’s a heavy burden.” 

“You understand all of me too.” Jean says, and almost lets it rest there, but he knows that letting it out now is barely a blip compared to everything else he’s said over the night. “I won’t survive losing you.” 

“Jean, don’t” Armin says quietly, body going tense in Jean’s arms.

“No, my body may still be here. I’ll be walking, talking, eating and shitting and doing what needs to be done, killing titans or... whatever our new enemies are… Marleys or someone else… but it won’t really be me, just, some empty shell that looks like me.”

“I love you.”

“Still?”

“Always.”

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for Jearmin week last year and didn't post it because ??? I think I was nervous since its such a departure from my usual comedic stuff, but it's also one of my favorite things I've written for this couple so I decided to finally publish it, a year and some change late because it made me sad when I saw it sitting, completely finished, in my drafts.


End file.
